I recently read "Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans." An excellent book that really paints an excellent narrative on early Cro-Magnon life. Most of the information is based upon archaeological research at many European sites. Brian Fagan the author covers the prolonged encounter between the Cro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals and between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago.

This was one of the defining moments of history, and I am completely enamored with the period.

This book gave a very positive view of the possible coexistence of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal life. It points to various reasons that the Neanderthals's could have perished. War is presented as a possibility. More time was spent on Neanderthal's extinction being caused by Cro-Magnon man pushing the Neanderthal's out of the most fertile grounds as well as other environmental influences. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers (Cro-Magnon), but Fagan presents evidence that they were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies, which allowed them to thrive in the intensely challenging climate of the Ice Age. Fagan presents the viewpoint that Neanderthal's didn't have the ability to adapt and learn as well as our ancestor’s; hence, they perished.

My study of history has shown particularly ancient history whenever 2 groups of people collide over the same resources and inevitably there is conflict with one party, usually the stronger, winning. Based on everything I've seen about human nature it seems to me that man probably had issues with Neanderthal's over territory, resources or just plain desire to dominate.

I think it is almost impossible for me to see a situation where Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal could have found a way to coexist into modern times. If Cro-Magnon had not destroyed the Neanderthals I think it is inevitable that they would have attempted or possibly did attempt to enslave them.

I read the same book.

It's interesting to speculate about, but there isn't any evidence of conflict--no neanderthal bodies with embedded spear points made by anatomically modern humans or anything like that.

I think the absence of such evidence is why the prevailing theory for the demise of the neanderthals is that they were out-competed.

It's probably safe to say that the AMH/neanderthal interactions varied from place to place and over time, and ranged from peaceful co-existence with some interbreeding to violence.

From the AMH point of view, I don't see any powerful incentive to kill neanderthals. The AMH had the better tool kit and were obviously better able to exploit more hunting opportunities than the neanderthals, so they wouldn't look at them as competitors who needed killing to secure a food supply.

One thing that struck me was that for most of the period both were alive, both AMH and neanderthals were very thin on the ground--I don't see a lot of competition.

Another thing that struck me was the claim that a neanderthal dressed in a suit would not draw stares on the subway--if they look that similar to us, then it might not be altogether clear to an AMH that he was looking at a different species/sub-species/whatever, and so he would not necessarily have an us/them incentive to treat a neanderthal any differently than he would treat a neighboring AMH.

It seemed to me as I was reading the book that life was either pretty good or pretty hard. In the summer, the living was pretty easy, there wasn't a lot of difficulty in getting enough food to eat--the main demand on your time was acquiring a surplus to store for the winter. Hard work, but usually you'd know you had enough to get by on. So in the summer, I suspect your average AMH would be thinking, "who has time for killing neanderthals? There's salmon to dry and reindeer to butcher..."

In the winter, life was brutal, and apparently mostly they holed up and sort of semi-hibernated. Under those conditions, I can easily see your average AMH thinking "kill neanderthals? It's effing cold out there!"

Being a little flippant, but I just don't see that there was ever any reason to think of neanderthals as competitors for scarce resources in most times and places.

I don't, however, necessarily buy the neanderthals were out-competed theory completely. i think it's more likely that they were out-bred, and AMH population densities somehow managed to essentially fragment the neanderthal populations into groups too small to be successful breeding populations.

I remember perusing some research that Neanderthal demise was from breeding rather than violence.

The evidence cited was DNA traits inherited from Neanderthals. ie immune system, red hair. In addition, there was some cave evidence in france(?) where it's was apparent that there was co-habitation between the two species with the body of a mixed child.

Thus, the conclusion was that Cro F##d Neanderthal to extinction and gingers were particularly good modern examples of where Neanderthal gene dominance was most prominent.

I am sure some google guru on this site can dig those articles out or perhaps I was just hallucinating again.

Great post guys. I admit this period of history is so fascinating to me. With all the struggles and atrocities we have had as one species, I think it is almost impossible for me to see a situation where Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal could have found a way to coexist as separate species into modern times.

Maybe they did via breeding into Homo sapiens as Gio suggests but I don't see a way for the two separate species to have survived without geographical isolation.

Glo, have you read the book? In the preface to the paperback edition, the author notes that only a tiny percentage of people have genes traceable to Neanderthals. I forget the exact number, but maybe 4%??? so the researchers concluded that interbreeding was fairly rare--it certainly didn't suggest that Neanderthals hybridized with AMH into extinction.

Also, had read the research on Neanderthals having red hair (primarily?) but had not heard AMH red hair attributed to being inherited from Neanderthals.

I'll probably spend some google time looking for the stuff you cite; I need some new reading material anyway.

I skimmed it and at first impression, it didn't grab me with its tone and it read like it was trying too hard to appeal to the masses.

I liked the book by Clive Finlayson "The humans that went extinct......."as he presented several hypothesis to their extinction and its more rigorous on its research.

If the Homo sapiens weren't purposely competing with the Neanderthals, it doesn't mean they weren't doing so beyond any willfull intent. The early humans would've just moved in slowly and pushed the Neanderthals back without malice.

Early humans did live among the Neanderthals since 130,000 ya, but that was mainly in the Middle East area. When Cro-Magnon and other early humans pushed into Europe in the warmer point between the two Ice Ages (c. 60,000-20,000), they essentially got a toe-hold there. Then when the last Ice Age hit the competition was too intense for the Neanderthals to survive. The Neanderthals couldn't compete. For instance, they weren't even anatomically capable of throwing a spear. Nor were they capable of using bow and arrows. The Homo sapiens just out-hunted them forcing the Neanderthals into more delicate locations.

I do think it's possible that the Neanderthals could've survived in the Arctic up until modern times, if the Ice Age didn't happen.

I just don't see this happening without geographical isolation. The Arctic is one possibility.

Evidence of interbreeding was published in May 2010, immediately before the publication of this book.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...ng_with_humans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_Genome_Project

I preferred that book as well.

I am going to grab a book Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth. Looks interesting Amazon keeps suggesting it to me. I think it will have more to say on the topic.

New article from American Scientist highlights the possible factor of dog domestication and hunting efficiency.

+1

Neanderthals were superior to everything that came before them in intel, tech,and adaptation. The next bunch (Cro- Magnons) were several steps higher and dominated and eventully replaced the Ns over a very long period of "sharing" the vast area with very small populations of each group. Sorry to disappoint " modern" thinkers, but don't see much evidence for "ethnic clensing" here. Natural selection does the same trick over a much longer time span!

Even if this is the case this all happened when Cro- Magnons were just getting a foothold for domination of the planet. I think it is almost impossible for me to see a situation where Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal could have found a way to coexist into modern times. If Cro-Magnon had not destroyed the Neanderthals by conflict I think it is inevitable that they would have attempted to enslave them. A look at the groups of people that evolved into that European region and I don't see a situation they allow the Neanderthals to survive to reach modern times and coexist.